Europe of 1516 presented quite a
world of contrasts. Superstition still ruled many people’s minds, yet men of
great scholarship and insight were to be found in every nation. Great political
struggles were taking place, struggles which would soon give form and outline
to the Europe of today. Nationalism was on the rise, and the papacy on the
decline. Heretics were still being burnt at the stake, and the ages-old cry of
reform was not thought to mean reform outside of the Roman Catholic Church but
rather within it. Luther had yet to post his 95 Theses. In that year of 1516 a
momentous event occurred - at Basle, Switzerland. From the press of John Froben
came Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. Recognitum et
Emendatum, Desiderius Erasmus’s edition of the Greek New Testament, along
with his own new Latin translation, with annotations. This work, put through
five different editions in Erasmus’s lifetime, would have lasting effects on
Biblical scholarship. Who was Erasmus? Why was he the first to publish a
critical edition of the Greek New Testament? How did this edition change
Christianity?

To answer these questions, we must
look at Erasmus the man, and determine how he viewed his work. We must examine
his times, his acquaintances, friends and foes. We must take up his New
Testament and weigh its worth, and then see in what ways it effected
scholarship in the following generations. It will be seen that Erasmus of
Rotterdam had a far-reaching and often unnoticed effect on the world.

Erasmus the Man

Desiderius Erasmus was a man who
shrouded his past in secrecy. Well he might, considering the social
implications of it. So well did he perform his task that we are not even sure
of the year of his birth. Zweig declares it to be 1466,1 others also give 1469.2 The main sources of information available
concerning his childhood come from Erasmus’s requests for dispensations from
the Pope. The reason is clear - Erasmus was illegitimate, and hence could not
hold a benefice without a special dispensation from the Pope. In requesting
this we are given his only personal history, and much to be expected, we find
some inconsistency with the known facts. One can hardly blame him - it seems
his father, aside from not being married to his mother Margaret, was also under
orders. Being illegitimate was bad enough - being the son of a priest was
worse. Though Erasmus tried to excuse his father with a tale of romance before
his father’s taking of vows, the fact that Erasmus had a brother (Peter) three
years older than himself seems to indicate otherwise. This situation was to
plague Erasmus his entire life, though it was eased somewhat by a special
dispensation bestowed upon him at Westminster Abbey in 1517.

Erasmus’s parents died early, and
left him to be raised by others. The young Dutch boy did not seem inclined to
study at first, and never did like his native tongue that well. In 1497 he
entered the Augustinian monastery at Steyn, and while Columbus was sailing to
the New World, Erasmus was ordained a Catholic priest by the Bishop of Utrecht.
Though released from his vows as an Augustinian Canon by Ammonius in 1517,
Erasmus never broke his vows as a priest, and died under orders.3

Desiderius Erasmus was a traveler.
He visited most of the European countries, spending time in England at
Cambridge, as well as in Paris and Basle. He was friendly with a vast number of
men, great and small. His correspondence fills a number of large volumes, and
to call his writings “voluminous” is not an overstatement.

Erasmus was not inclined to
accepting criticism, especially not from a younger person. Scholarly debate was
one thing, but unfortunately, in that day and that climate, many were disposed
to add in charges of impiety or heresy to make things a little spicier. Erasmus
spent much of his time (too much, it seems) in writing apologies and defenses
of his works, and he too was able to dip his pen rather deeply in the acid in
his attacks on others. His early work In Praise of Folly set the tone
for the rest of his life (much to his chagrin), and the notes and comments in
his Greek New Testament continued the tradition of the vituperative language he
utilized in debate. Referring to Erasmus’s penchant for writing apologies,
Faludy comments,

“It would be surprising that he
bothered at all if it were not for the fact that the charges usually mentioned
heresy; when this happened the violence of his rebuttal more than once
surprised even Erasmus himself.”4

Erasmus was gifted with almost
phenomenal powers of the mind. He was able to concentrate for long periods of
time, and to work quickly for fourteen or sixteen hours a day. This allowed him
to complete monumental tasks (such as his edition of the New Testament) in a
relatively short period of time. When one realizes the handicaps involved at
that time in comparison with modern writers, his achievements are even more
remarkable.

The writings of Erasmus demonstrate
the view that he was a forerunner of the Reformers. Though he never left the
Roman Catholic system, he attacked abuse wherever he found it. He was truly a
humanist, but in the 16th century definition. He felt that people had the
ability to understand the things of God, if only they were given the chance. He
was known for his vitriolic denunciation of superstition, relics and the like.
That is not to say that he did not accept the supernatural - far from it. One
must remember that in the Europe of 1500 there were enough splinters of the
Cross to fill an entire ship! It was the abuse of relics that he despised. His
acceptance of diabolism is seen in this letter to Richardoto in 1533:

“I used to say jokingly to my
friends that they were not fleas that bit me, but demons; and it turned out
that this was no pleasantry, but a reality; for it is not long since a woman
was burnt who, though married, had carried on a secret commerce with the Devil
for eighteen years past. Among other trimes, she admitted that by the hand of
her lover she had sent into this very town several large bags of fleas. The
place where she was burnt is called Klychove, and is about two leagues from
here. I am writing this to you while standing; and even while finishing this
letter these cursed animals bite me cruelly in my trousers and around my neck.”5

It may be that Erasmus is here
laughing up his sleeve - most likely he is not.

In reference to Erasmus’s production
of the Greek New Testament, and his Latin translation of the same, it must be
pointed out that his humanistic tendencies played an important part in driving
him to the work. A valuable source for our knowledge of this is the Preface to
the work, as well as some of the notes written by him. For example, in the
first edition of 1516 he writes,

I vehemently dissent from those who
would not have private persons read the Holy Scriptures nor have them
translated into the vulgar tongues, as though either Christ taught such
difficult doctrines that they can only be understood by a few theologians, or
the safety of the Christian religion lay in ignorance of it. I should like all
women to read the Gospel and the Epistles of Paul. Would that they were
translated into all languages so that not only Scotch and Irish, but Turks and
Saracens might be able to read and know them.6

In the preface to the third edition of
1522, he expands on this thought by saying,

Some think it offensive to have the
sacred books turned into English or French, but the evangelists turned into
Greek what Christ spoke in Syriac, nor did the Latins fear to turn the words of
Christ into the Roman tongue - that is, to offer them to the promiscuous
multitude...Like St. Jerome I think it a great triumph and glory to the cross
if it is celebrated by the tongues of all men; if the farmer at the plow sings
some of the mystic Psalms, and the weaver sitting at the shuttle often
refreshes himself with something from the Gospel. Let the pilot at the rudder
hum over a sacred tune, and the matron sitting with gossip or friend at the
colander recite something from it.7

The sufficiency of the human soul in
matters of religion was a dangerous idea in a world where the papacy ruled all.
His idea is definitely in line with the Reformers who were about to break upon
the world, and it certainly is not surprising that many conservatives
associated Erasmus with them, bringing down on him numerous charges of heresy.
Nor should we be too harsh on Erasmus for his less-than-generous responses to
such attacks.

Roland Bainton rightly points out
that when scholars accused Erasmus of faulty erudition as well as deficient orthodoxy,
“the first charge touched his pride, the second his very existence as a member
of the Christian community."8
We shall look more closely at some of these attacks later.

Erasmus’s Work on the New
“Instrument”

Erasmus’s interest in the ancient
texts of the New Testament began quite early. The monastery at Steyn had quite
a library of which to boast, and it is sure that Erasmus made good use of it.
Then in 1504, he ran across Lorenzo Valla’s Notes on the New Testament in
the Praemonstratensian Abbey of Parc near Louvain. So taken was he with Valla’s
work that he published it at Paris the same year. This was a risky undertaking,
for Valla certainly is not remembered as a saint, and his emendations of the
Vulgate text could bring nothing but attack from conservative Catholics.
Valla’s scientific comparison of texts, however, pierced to Erasmus’s heart,
and would eventually be seen twelve years later in his New Testament.

Another influence upon Erasmus was
John Colet. A friend of Erasmus, he encouraged him, partly through his lectures
on St. Paul, to undertake the task that had already captured his imagination.
Just when he began is hard to say. We know from a letter written to Peter
Gilles in the autumn of 1512 that he was already underway, working both on the
New Testament as well as the epistles of St. Jerome.9 We also know that it was during this time
in England that he availed himself of some of the manuscripts in the area.

The enormity of the task must be
realized. The modern textual critic has at his disposal the work of hundreds of
great scholars - lists of manuscript collations, critical editions of the text
that in one volume give him a vast mountain of information - texts that open up
literally thousands of manuscripts from all over the world. This was hardly the
situation in which Erasmus found himself.

The actual texts utilized by Erasmus
for his Greek testament are a bit of a mystery. Different writers say different
things. It is agreed that Erasmus had ten man scripts: four from England, five
from Basle, and one borrowed from his friend John Reuchlin.10 Reuchlin’s codex seemed to Erasmus the
oldest, though it is actually from the 10th or 12th century. It represented the
best of the available codices, yet Erasmus distrusted it, and utilized it only for
the book of Revelation. Erasmus wrote to Reuchlin in August of 1514 and said,

"It is also my intention to see
to the printing of the New Testament in Greek, with my own annotations added.
They say that you have an eminently correct copy of this [New Testament in
Greek], and if you would lend it to John Froben you will do a favor not only to
him and to me, but also to all the studious. Your copy, intact and unstained,
will be returned to you."11

Faludy states that this codex is
still extant.12

As to the identification of the
other manuscripts used, opinions differ. Phillips says “which they were is now
unknown."13 However,
Allen identifies one of the four from England as “the Leicester Codex written
by Emmanuel of Constantinople" and that it was with the Franciscans at
Cambridge by the early sixteenth century.14
It was undoubtedly this and three others that Erasmus worked on while at
Cambridge. Becoming unsettled in England in 1514, he packed up his belongings,
(one square wooden box and three leather-covered trunks)15 including the work he had done on the
New Testament, and headed for Basle, arriving in mid-August 1514. He hoped to
find manuscripts at Basle that were nearly ready for publication.

Instead, he found five manuscripts.
He was disappointed with their quality, especially since this would require him
to do more work than he planned. The second best codex available to him he
found at Basle - but again, Erasmus used it little, for he felt it had been
tampered with and brought into conformity with the Vulgate text (which was not
true). Hence the two best sources in his hands went predominately unused. He
knew of the great Vaticanus manuscript, but it was at Rome and out of reach. As
for the other manuscripts at Basle, he used two inferior manuscripts from the
monastic library at Basle. One was of the Gospels, and still today has
Erasmus’s corrections visible and the other of Acts and the Epistles. Metzger
dates them as from the twelfth century.16
He compared these with a few others. Only Reuchlin’s text contained the book of
Revelation, and he was forced to utilize it at that point.

Hence, Erasmus’s first edition was
based on ten manuscripts, none of which could be called exceedingly “ancient,”
and even at that he basically ignored the two best exemplars before him. That
despite this his text was relatively good is more a witness to the preservation
of the Scriptures over time than the (admittedly) great scholarship of Erasmus.

There was also a time factor
involved. Froben wished to get the edition out as soon as possible. Possibly he
had heard of the project of Cardinal Ximenes, which eventually upon publication
was called the "Complutensian Polyglot,” (Complutum being the Latin name
of Alcala, the place of publication) the New Testament Greek portion of which
had already been printed in 1514, the leaves being stored away until papal
approval could be obtained. Therefore, the distinction must be made between the
first printed Greek New Testament (Ximenes’ Complutensian) and the first
published Greek New Testament, that of Erasmus.

Erasmus was aided by two scholars -
Nikolaus Gerber (to whom numerous misprints can be attributed) and Ioannes
Oecolampadius, later an aid to Zwingli and a leader in the Reformationmovement. Oecolampadius looked up
all references to the Hebrew of the Old Testament, as Erasmus did not know
Hebrew. Refusing payment for his services, Oecolampadius accepted only one of
Erasmus’s manuscripts, the introduction to the Gospel of John, and is said to
have treated it as a relic, kissing it and hanging it on a crucifix while he
prayed, that is until is was stolen.17

Between the inferiority of the
manuscripts available, the stress for time under which the printer’s copy was
made, and the numerous mistakes made by Gerber, it is amazing that the first
edition made it into print at all. Erasmus himself called it “precipitated
rather than edited”(praecipitatum verius quam editum)18and that it was “hurried out
headlong.”19 Scrivener said
of it, “[It] is in that respect the most faulty book I know.”20 Erasmus immediately began the tedious
task of revision, as well as undertaking to defend his work.

The book contained 679 pages, about
half of which were given over to his own annotations to the text and
descriptions of errors in the Vulgate version. The rest was Erasmus’s Latin
translation and the Greek text. As an added precaution against attack, Erasmus
(ironically) dedicated the volume to Pope Leo X, even though he had not yet
received an answer to his request to do so. It was a lucky gamble for him, as
when the Pope’s answer did arrive, it was positive in tone.

As mentioned above, Erasmus did not
use the term “Testamentum” but rather “Instrumentum” in the first edition. The
second edition 1518 changed to the more familiar “Testament,” and this was followed
in all subsequent editions.21

Specifics Concerning Erasmus’s Text

The specific Greek text of Erasmus
is important on a number of accounts. This text represented the first attempt
at a critical text. Though over 400 changes were made in the second edition,
few were vitally important, and the text as created by Erasmus went
predominately unchanged for centuries, eventually being dubbed the “textus
receptus” in 1624 by the Elzevir brothers. For some, even today, the TR is the
“sacred text,” somehow inspired by God Himself in its every particular. Yet
it’s basis is found in ten not-very-ancient minuscule texts, the two best of
which went mainly unused. As the TR became the basis of the King James Version,
the particulars of Erasmus’s text are indeed important.

Some of the problems with Erasmus’s
text are, to modern readers, almost humorous. For example. The text he utilized
for the book of Revelation was Reuchlin’s. Unfortunately, this manuscript was
missing the last leaf, containing verses 16 through 21. He found the text for
verse 20 in Valla’s notes, but was left with nothing for the other five verses.22 Time factors being what they were,
Erasmus decided to translate from the Vulgate into Greek to fill the gap. He
warned his readers in a footnote that he had done so, but he still came in for
some (well-deserved) criticism. Metzger gives a footnote in which he lists some
of the words that Erasmus came up with that have absolutely no manuscript
support whatsoever, and yet appear in the “Textus Receptus.”23 Some examples include orthrinos at
Revelation 22:16, elthe twice in verse 17 (its actually erchou), eltheto for
erckestho in the same verse, suntusrturoumai gar for martnro and epitithe pros
tauta for epithe ep auta in verse 18 and so on. That these mistakes have been
maintained, sometimes with fanatical zeal, for over 450 years is just
this side of amazing! Other erroneous readings arose because of the mistakes of
Gerber in writing. One famous example is Revelation 17:8. His reading of ouk
esti kaiper esti should have been ouk estin kai parestai. Not only was this
error not corrected, but it slipped into Luther’s German and was not corrected
until 1892! The Textus Receptus maintains it today against a mountain of
evidence.

The most famous textual “problem”
involved in Erasmus’s work was 1 John 5:7, the famous Comma Johanneum. Absent
from every Greek text he had (indeed, some think from every Greek text in
existence!), he rightly omitted it. A hue and cry was raised upon publication,
and charges of heresy and Arianism were cast about. Erasmus asked his friend in
Rome, Bombasius, to consult the famous Codex Vaticanus concerning the passage.
When Bombasius replied that the verse was not contained in that ancient codex,
Erasmus rashly proclaimed that if he were to find so much as one Greek text
containing the “Three Witnesses” he would include it in his next edition. Of
course, such a manuscript was quickly produced. Many suspect it as having been
produced specifically for the occasion. Itis today known as minuscule
61 and is housed at Trinity College, Dublin. It is dated to the 16th century,
and Metzger reports it opens of its own accord to the passage in 1 John, its
having been consulted at that point so often.24
True to his word Erasmus included the spurious passage in the third edition
(1522) “that there be no calumny.”25
He expressed in a lengthy footnote his doubts concerning the authenticity of
the manuscript. However, verse remains today a touchstone of orthodoxy for
some, most notably the Roman Catholic Church.26

Some other notes of interest include
Erasmus’s questioning of the authenticity of such passages as Mark 16:9-20 and
the pericope of the adulteress in John 8. Despite all of the above criticisms,
Erasmus’s work was truly amazing, especially in light of the circumstances.

The Latin translation that came
along with the Greek text precipitated no small amount of protest as well. The
very idea of reading anything but the Vulgate text caused some people
indigestion. Erasmus was severely criticized for translating logos at John 1:1
into the Latin sermo rather than the Vulgate verbum. Erasmus felt
sermo more accurately expressed the richness of the phrase logos in the
Greek. Such liberties were not easily accepted by the establishment.

For the second edition of his work
Erasmus consulted a Latin manuscript lent to him by the King of Hungary known
as Codex Aureus, two manuscripts from the Austin Priory of Corsendonk, and a
Greek MS from the monastery of St. Agnes.27
Other comparisons were made in later years, though the changes were not major,
as has been seen.

Allin all there were five
editions before Erasmus’s death - 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1535.
Erasmus did not see the Complutensian Diaglott until 1522, and he was
unashamed to utilize its better text in Revelation in his edition of 1527. The
total copies of the first two editions was 3,300, showing it had quite a
readership despite its controversial nature.28
It was reprinted at least 69 times between 1516 and 1536, and that does not
include separate editions of the Latin or Greek versions. Hence, as Faludy
points out, the New Testament was “printed the equivalent of once every 90 days
for a period of twenty years.” That adds up to a conservative figure of 300,000
copies before Erasmus passed away.29

The Effects of the New Testament

Publication of the New Testament
text had two distinct effects - the first was the stirring up of controversy.
The second, and hopefully more important, was the spawning of numerous
translations into the common languages. As the latter is much more positive
than the former, we will look at it in conclusion.

Even before his work came off of the
press, Erasmus encountered opposition. Martin Dorp, a young scholar of the
University of Louvain, contacted Erasmus. He asked that the older scholar undue
some of the damage done by In Praise of Folly, and he included in his letter a
concern about Erasmus’s work on the Biblical texts. He objected to any change
in the Vulgate text, and argued that since the Greek texts came from the Greek church
(which had not remained truthful) while the Latin was guarded by the true
Church, the Greek text is secondary and corrupted. Dorp’s letter was not
vitriolic. Mangan gives a lively description of Erasmus’s reply:

To this most modest and most
friendly request Erasmus answered in a voluminous epistle, sweeping away Dorp’s
timid rill of appeal in a veritable torrent of eloquent and victorious reply,
where metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, irony, and hyperbole vied with each other
in hurrying the daring objector to the ocean of utter annihilation.30

Mangan’s description of the letter
is probably more colorful than the original. Erasmus said, “You must
distinguish between Scripture, the translation of Scripture, and the
transmission of both. What will you do with the errors of the copyists?”31 At any rate, Dorp was eventually won
over. But his attitude was a common one, and one that Erasmus did battle with
for years. The reason is that Erasmus believed “in the existence of a Greek
text a faultless original which, once found, could be deciphered properly with
the aid of reason.”32 This
was not the official church position, however. Ten years after Erasmus’s death,
the Council of Trent officially established the Vulgate text, and condemned
Erasmus’s work.

Another scholar of renown who
entered into combat with Erasmus was Luther’s foe, John Eck. Eck wrote to
Erasmus, “Do you mean to say that the best Greek was not written by the
apostles on whom the Holy Spirit conferred the gift of tongues?” Erasmus
responded, “My dear fellow, if you will look at the list of languages of which
the Holy Spirit gave command to the apostles on the day of Pentecost you will
discover that Greek was not one of them. Besides the gift lasted for only one
day.”33 Other even more
disturbing attacks came from the likes of Edward Lee, later Archbishop of York,
and Jacob Stuniga of Spain, who was on the committee that worked on the Complutensian
Diaglott. Erasmus took them all on, and devoted much time to the defense of
his work. Smith writes,

Erasmus ridiculed these fossils in a
lively letter, comparing them to the old priest who, owning a breviary with the
typographical error “mumpsimus” instead of “sumpsimus” at a certain point in
the mass, became so accustomed to the nonsensical form that he refused to
change it when theerror was pointed out to him, and kept on mumbling
“mumpsimus” to the end of his days.34

It cannot even be said that the
controversy has yet come to an end today. At least now most people realize the
importance of having a solid foundation for the Biblical texts.

The second, and more happy result of
Erasmus’s work was the new ability to translate the Word of God directly into
the vernacular of the people. Luther used Erasmus’s text as the basis of his
translation into German, as was noted above. In fact, Luther utilized Erasmus’
work a great deal in his lectures, beginning with Romans chapter 9, the point
he had reached at the time of his obtaining Erasmus’s New Testament.35 The first English translation, that of
William Tyndale, was also based on Erasmus.36
Others included Benedek Komjati’s Hungarian version (1533), and Francisco de
Enzinas’ Spanish translation of 1543. Preserved Smith expressed it well when he
said,

It [Erasmus’s Greek New Testament]
was the fountain and source from which flowed the new translations into the
vernaculars which like rivers irrigated the dry lands of the mediaeval Church
and made them blossom into a more enlightened and lovely form of religion.37

Textual critics may argue technical
points of his work, and well they should. But the importance of Erasmus’s work
must not be allowed to be swallowed up in technical disputation. God’s Word, in
its original tongue, was again available to all, and the effect was electric.

Conclusion

Finally, it would be best to go to
Erasmus himself for a summary of his philosophy. We have seen the humanistic
Erasmus, the scholarly Erasmus, the debating Erasmus. This homily, written by
that great Dutch scholar, gives us another view of him:

Do we desire to learn, is there then
any authority better than Christ? We read and reread the works of a friend, but
there are thousands of Christians who have never read the gospels and the
epistles in all their lives. The Mohammadans study the Koran, and Jews peruse
Moses. Why do we not the same for Christ? He is our only doctor. On him the
Spirit descended and a voice said, “Hear ye him!” What will you find in Thomas,
what in Scotus to compare with his teaching? But as there are school masters
who by their severity make boys hate learning, so there are Christians so
morose as to instill distaste for the philosophy of Christ, which could not be
more agreeable. Happy is he whom death overtakes meditating thereon. Let us
then thirst for it, embrace it, steep ourselves in it, die in it, be transformed
thereby. If any one shows us the footprints of Christ we Christians fall down
and adore. If his robe is placed on exhibition do we not traverse the earth to
kiss it? A wooden or a stone image of Christ is bedecked with jewels and should
we not place gold gems and whatever may be more precious on the gospels which
bring Christ closer to us than any paltry image? In them we have Christ
speaking, healing, dying, and rising and more genuinely present than were we to
view him with the eyes of the flesh.38